


Butcher Bird

by TintinnabulousRunes



Category: ThoseWhoWentMissing - Fandom
Genre: ARPG, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-05-30 19:17:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 4,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19409692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TintinnabulousRunes/pseuds/TintinnabulousRunes
Summary: Origin Prompts for Esk #2600, PyrrhusFor the ThoseWhoWentMissing ARPG on DeviantArt





	1. Original Form

**Author's Note:**

> I joined TWWM over on DeviantArt, same username as AO3.

Pyrrhus was originally a loggerhead shrike. 


	2. Losing Their Way

The little shrike became caught up in a thunderstorm. Tossed about by the winds and buffeted by rain, he could no longer tell which way was north while on his migration and became completely lost. Trying to fly in the thunderstorm was exhausting and he soon fell toward the earth.


	3. Meeting the Esk

"Hello little butcher bird. How do you feel about gardens? You see, Ikkit wants this land back, and We can't have that."

X finds the injured shrike and sees an opportunity.


	4. The Transformation

The little shrike fluttered his left wing, still disorientated from being storm tossed and pained by injuries he had no way of tallying. All the struggles did him no good. His right wing was broken, pinned beneath him. The little shrike was fading fast. 

The nearby creature smelt of human lands. They drew closer, looming over the injured bird. Their voice was a whole crowd of humans at once. The shrike recognized the sound "bird." That was one of the noises that humans made then they saw him.

The shrike stilled. The honeyed words, though he could not fully understand them, still promised healing and comfort. The little shrike accepted, his body dying around him and his spirit reaching out without truly knowing what he was agreeing to.

Yellow sparks that matched the color of the molten glass that hovered around the creature's head began to circle around the little shrike. The sparks smelled of ironwork, of the self-destructive hurtle forward of Mankind. The first spark touched the little shrike and the pain dulled.

The sparks multiplied, continuing to alight on the shrike's feathers, and the soon his body dissolved. It was healing, in away. There was no suffering when one no longer had a body that could feel pain. The honeyed words never lied; the simply did not reveal the whole truth.

The spark that was once the little shrike's heart sunk deep into the Earth's gentle embrace. He became tethered to the crossroads of the blooming garden path. There was a comforting certainty to the boundary.

In a brilliant burst, the sparks exploded upwards in a radiant column. They hung midair, taking on the essence of the place. One by one, the sparks went from the color of molten glass to glowing a pale green.

The sparks condensed, becoming pale green fur, then darker on the limbs, and flowing down the tail, turning the color of tree bark and rich soil. The newly formed esk stood experimentally on three-toed paws.

"I..." The esk began, then stopped.

For the first time, he thought of himself as himself. An individual. A being of unique experience and free will.

"I." He said, pleased with himself. Then he turned to the being, who still loomed taller than him. "What am I?"

"You are an esk," said the being, in their chorus of human voices in a hundred human languages, many of which were long dead. "We are an esk. You may call us X."

The esk nodded, feeling the crest of redbud branches at the back of his head. He carefully stretched each of his willowy limbs before sitting down, looking up at X. "What is an esk?"

"A spirit. Of nature, of the earth. You are bound to this place."

The esk looked around him. He felt comfortable where he was. It felt like home.

Without knowing any significance, the esk asked a third question. "Do I have a name?"

X tilted their head. The molten glass shifted. Several pieces looked like birds, diving down the sides of X's mane. Three other pieces twisted to look like flowers. Then they were back to a halo of formless bubbles.

"Pyrrhus," X announced, their chorus of voices sounding in pleased harmony.

The esk rolled the name around in his mind, feeling its form. The name felt weighted. Burdened, almost, but he did not know from what. But that was a good thing, right? Names should have weight to them.

Pyrrhus liked his new name. He knew no other one, after all.

He looked up at X. X studied him. It was not often that the Wander transformed animals. But the lost shrike had been present and would prove useful for X's intentions.

X leaned closer still. "Your resonance is high and clear. It is your nature to be a protector. We need you to be a guardian for this path. To tend to it. To aid the humans here and fight back the forest. Can you do this? Can you promise this to Us?"

X's form glitched in excitement. For a moment, their limbs elongated, and their fur turned russet red. Their mane of kamut wheat elongated and multiplied before turning black with rot. Then their eyes glowed orange and the markings on their face melted and ran like an oil slick down their chest.

But then they were back to their normal form, and Pyrrhus was left puzzled and overwhelmed. Filled with newfound free will, Pyrrhus felt he had no choice. "Of course. I promise."

"Excellent. Good luck, Pyrrhus," X began to fade. "We hope this was worth it for you."

Then the Wanderer was gone, off to another part of their Biome.

Pyrrhus sat at the crossroads for a long while. He had gone from having feathers to having fur. He had gone from the simple focus of survival alone, to the vast consideration of past and future and effect on both himself and others.

Standing once more, Pyrrhus looked to the sky for guidance. The sun hovered above the horizon in the east, poking through the fading storm clouds. Pyrrhus began walking along the eastern path towards it.


	5. The Other

It is time to face the below stoked fire  
for fine sand and soda ash fated for glass.  
Which artisans will elaborately engrave  
with careful tools of brass  
watched by a looming spirit higher.

The careful observation of salt-grass  
and wort turned to ash. The properties it gave  
to the perfect crystal glass to blow.  
By preservation of the form, crave  
the continuation. Watching molten forms, by gas,

Be expanded. The master artisan, save  
from the tumor in his brain. Grow,  
bound to his workshop in the mire.  
The patron Wanderer, though snow  
and rain, boredom stave.

Drive it away by the light aglow  
from the furnace eternal. The ire  
of siblings matters not. Their time will pass.  
What matters more is to inspire  
the human endeavor and show.

\---

At the crossroads they wait to make a deal,  
every word honeyed in their thousand voices.  
Many will, to the wandering chorus, kneel,  
find there are no more choices.  
Seek the misguided, dying, lost and transform  
them into a form more lasting.  
To lead them from brimstone fire  
into an eternal and safe warm,  
promises honeyed words engrasping,  
for both do eternity desire.

\---

Ever grows the wicked garden, glass spire  
and steel beam, in sunlight gleam,  
every growing wider, higher,  
driven now by oil, then steam.  
The form will run and glitch,  
recent as They are. Trapped,  
formless and aimless, fight  
for every scrap of tilled earth, pitch  
soaked decks inspire to travel. Adapt  
or be overrun by molten spite.


	6. Their Purpose

Too many blossoms piled at the base of the redbud tree. Pyrrhus sat between two of the roots, looking at the lone bare branch. A cluster of dense green was nestled in the fork.

Wiggling his haunches to check his balance, Pyrrhus sighted the largest branch closest to the bare one. He launched himself and landed on his stomach. He got his feet under him, shaking himself off and feeling grateful none could see him. He was still getting used to having four legs. He could not quite recall his body before being an esk, but four legs felt weird.

The source of the intense green, and the trouble, was a clump of mistletoe. Pyrrhus pawed at it experimentally. The plant remained firmly in place. Roots dug under the outermost layer of part, sinking into the softer inner bark to sap nutrients and water.

Pyrrhus continued lightly batting it, trying to figure out a way to dislodge it without harming the redbud more than his poor tree was already harmed. It wasn't the mistletoe's fault, but the redbud was delicate already and could not cope with the parasite.

The mistletoe was firmly attached. Pyrrhus grasped it at the base with his telekinesis. He gave a firm yank. The mistletoe came free, taking chunk of bark with it. Still levitating the mistletoe, Pyrrhus jumped down from the redbud and walked toward the edge of his boundary. He tossed the mistletoe into a large oak tree. It gave the mistletoe a chance and the oak was large and sturdy enough to handle the burden.

Pyrrhus returned to the redbud. He nuzzled the exposed bit inner bark. He wondered if he needed something to cover the wound because the redbud could get infected. The thought distressed him greatly. He would be a very poor gardener if he let one of his trees die. It would break the promise he made.

Forcing himself to lay down and relax, Pyrrhus rested his muzzle right by the injury. His presence helped everything in his boundary. He could help his tree; it would just require patience.

Pyrrhus dozed, his nictitating membranes closing to shield his eyes. It was a pleasant day. Just chilly enough that there were fewer humans, but warm enough to be comfortable for the spirit.

"Mama!"

The cry and a feeling of _lost_ got Pyrrhus' attention.

He felt more annoyed than worried. Some of the visiting humans kept on losing their hatchlings. One pair had even lost two hatchlings at once.

"Mama!" Came the cry again.

Pyrrhus stood, shaking himself off, then leapt down from the tree.

"Mamaaaaa..." This cry ended in a wail.

Pyrrhus wandered in the direction the cries and the feeling were tugging him.

The feeling lead him toward the northern end of his boundary. The ground grew damper. A stream, more a trickle this time of year, wandered parallel to the path for a little while before turning back into the depths of the surrounding forest.

It's an oppressive thing, the forest. Encroaching and taking and filled with laughing shadows and...

Pyrrhus had to stop himself. There was work to be done. A lost one needed to be found and sooner rather than later.

Pyrrhus walked alongside the stream, looking down where it had carved itself a path from the stone and clay of the forest floor. There was a small stone bridge that crossed the stream, though the humans did not use it anymore. Well, most of them did not. Pyrrhus had found a few of the juvenile humans hiding there, pressing their faces together. Perpetually strange things, humans were.

A spot of bright blue stood out and Pyrrhus knew he found the lost hatchling. Humans were thankfully very colorful, particularly their young ones.

The blue hatchling stood in the stream, mud staining their fur (feathers?). The blue hatchling looked up at Pyrrhus. They bared their teeth; which Pyrrhus had figured out that meant humans were happy. Unlike with anything else where bared teeth meant angry.

The blue hatchling clapped their hands and exclaimed, "Doggy!"

Pyrrhus retreated half a pace back. He was most certainly not a doggy. The rare human hatchlings that could see him frequently alluded, loudly, to his canine build. Pyrrhus always felt quite insulted by it. He was a spirit of nature, an unknowable, ethereal being, not some mangy canine.

"This way human hatchling." Pyrrhus beckoned instead, wanting to return the hatchling back as quickly as possible.

The hatchling tried to clamber out of the streambed. They slipped on a muddy spot and slid back down. Pyrrhus understood the predicament now.

Pyrrhus cast is gaze around, trying to find something to use to aid the hatchling. A fallen branch lay nearby. With care, he used his telekinesis to maneuver the branch to rest next to the hatchling.

"Climb on," he instructed.

The hatchling scrambled up the branch, giggling the whole time. "Nice doggy."

Making sure the hatchling was going to follow, Pyrrhus began trotting north to where the bulk of the humans were. The hatchling toddled along behind him, laughing and reaching out toward him, "Glow doggy."

Annoyed as he was, he could not help feeling some amount of fondness anyways.

Humans were a part of his path just as the gravel and trees and flowers and benches all were. Humans were the reason for his path. Hatchlings could not help being hatchlings, they were by their very design loud, smelly, and sticky.

"Mama!" Came the cry, this one being happy.

The hatchling raced forward on stubby legs.

"Brian! Goodness, there you went!"

Pyrrhus made sure the hatchling was safely back in their mother's arms before turning back down the path. All was right with the humans and he had a redbud to attend to.


	7. The Threshold

The feeling of gravel beneath paws came as a strange sensation. Pyrrhus stopped and pawed at the ground experimentally. All things were new and strange to him. His very feelings were alien. His fundamental nature had changed in some ineffable way.

The eastern path was illuminated by the rising sun, pale golden light filtering through the canopy. Pyrrhus tried to avoid the drips of water falling from the trees. The water soaking his fur made him shiver, ice cold and terrifying in yet another unnamable way.

Sitting down on a sun warmed patch of gravel, Pyrrhus shook himself dry. His fur fluffed and his branches rattled together.

The forest surrounded him with morning sounds, the stirring of creatures in the damp leaflitter and the first chirps of birds greeting the sun. Pyrrhus wished to join the chorus but found he had no voice. He could produce no chirps or whistles. The only thing he could do was produce a mournful psychic hum.

The forest fell silent around him, the life disturbed by this new influence.

Pyrrhus could tell he was fundamentally separated from the forest now. This path, his home, was a place of mankind. He too, was part of mankind's lands.

Pyrrhus looped back, not wanting to further disturb the creatures around him and feeling quite disturbed himself.

The crossroads waited for him. A glint caught Pyrrhus' eye. He nosed the ground where X had been. A tiny bead of glass lay nestled in the gravel. He left it where it was; a gift for the path, not for him.

Pyrrhus went slowly, sticking to the center of the path. He practiced how to place his paws. He pranced, trotted, loped. He did it wrong and tripped. When a moth flew by, he turned too sharply and stepped on his trailing tail.

The fur was long and limp. He could not raise it in alarm, splaying out memories of feathers to make himself bigger. He had lost and gained.

Pyrrhus walking twisted and turned with the path. Meandering gravel crunched under his paws. It glittered and glinted in the weak sunlight. It was buried under damp leaves that had already begun to rot into rich earth.

Was the rot and the earth part of the forest or the path?

West turned north, running alongside a streambed that was wet with only rainwater. Tufts of rain lilies bloomed, most of them around an offshoot from the path that lead to a stone bridge.

The far end of the bridge was crisscrossed with something black and yellow. Pyrrhus went over to investigate, curious if the thing was a kind of plant he had not seen before. The stuff was shiny and beaded with water. It was not a plant.

Pyrrhus began to duck under the black and yellow stuff, trying to get a better look. The paw that crossed under first began to feel strange. It was like fuzz filled the limb.

Pyrrhus jerked back. The fuzzy feeling faded. Pyrrhus batted the black and yellow stuff. All that did was get his paw wet.

Pyrrhus ducked low, nosing at the ground under the black and yellow stuff. The tip of his snout felt fuzzy and he started feeling fuzzy all over. Pink flowers dropped around him as the branches on his head went bare. Pyrrhus withdrew his snout and waited, alarm coursing through him.

The fuzzy feeling faded and, even though he could not see, he knew his flowers were back. They were closed in tight buds, by they were back.

The forest. The forest lay beyond this marker. The humans had decided the path ended and had marked the end with their bright-dark lines. X had told Pyrrhus he was bound to the path. So, when the path ended, did that mean Pyrrhus did as well?

He lay down on the stone bridge, resting his head on his forepaws. The question bothered Pyrrhus. He was not used to questioning and had no idea how to get an answer.

He was tired and restless at the same time. He wanted to curl up in a little ball. He wanted to run and run and run until he couldn't anymore. But he had no lungs that needed to breathe so that mean he could run forever, and nothing could stop him.

The air was still damp even though the rain was gone.

With a surge, Pyrrhus got up and leapt. He landed in the try streambed that ran under the bridge. Still solid. Touching the bank opposite his path was fuzzy.

He set off at a slow walk. He could not answer everything, but he could start mapping. He found the fuzzy places where forest met path. Where the forest encroached and threatened and loomed.

Bit by bit, Pyrrhus began to understand what his promise meant. The path was his and he would fight back the forest.


	8. Their Haunt

The rain fell in heavy droplets, crashing through the branches of the trees. The gravel path was turned into a river of muck. Several of the freshly planted flowerbeds were washed away.

Pyrrhus tried desperately to put them to right. But whenever he had replanted one plant, the rain took another. Then when he returned to the first, it had been once again washed away.

Giving up on fighting the rain, Pyrrhus had first hidden under a bench, but the wet ground still soaked through his fur. Turning himself ethereal had not worked, either, as the raindrops went through him and that was somehow worse. The trees provided no help. Many just dropped wet leaves on him rather than providing shelter. It wasn't entirely their fault, but it still felt quite rude.

Pyrrhus trotted up and down the bounds of his path, seeking something that would protect him from the rain. He did not want to leave the path. It felt bad enough leaving on a good day but leaving in the rain was a dreadful prospect.

His odds were best along the eastern path. It was the least traveled of the four branches and the humans left it alone the most. He had remembered seeing something out there made of wood but had yet to fully investigate it, given it had no plants around it to tend to.

At the end of the eastern path, where the gravel was buried under leaf cover, there was indeed a wooden thing. Pyrrhus circled it. It was a shed, the door hanging ajar.

The shed, though weatherworn and tilted, proved to be dry inside. Leaves covered the floor and crunched beneath Pyrrhus' paws. He poked around a toppled shelf. There were shards of pottery among the wood splinters. 

The pottery shards gave off a feeling of discontent. Lost and broken things tended to do that.

Pyrrhus nudged the remaining shelves on the east wall. They all held firm. Piece by piece, Pyrrhus used his telekinesis to arrange the pottery shards on the lowest two shelves. They would make good spots to set anything interesting he found. It would help the pottery shards to give them purpose.

Sweeping the dry leaves into a pile, Pyrrhus curled up on top of them. Dry at least, he could relax. The sound of the rain was almost nice when it was not actively soaking him.

Though he no longer slept, Pyrrhus relaxed into a meditative trance.

The rain lasted the whole night. 

When the rain left, the humans returned. Pyrrhus watched the gardener humans to figure out where they were going first before making his own recovery efforts. The sodden soil did not readily cooperate, and he could feel that several of the plants were going to be too sick to recover.

Pyrrhus persisted, replanting roots and freeing leaves from the mud. It would give the plants a chance, but rot lingered in the damp. The earth was thick and did not offer the right amount of drainage. Pyrrhus would have to figure out a way to put more gravel and stone into the soil, without the humans interrupting his efforts. He could start at the more remote parts of his path to develop his technique with the wildflowers first.

Finishing with his area, Pyrrhus went back to watching the gardener humans. They seemed to have things under control. There was nothing else he could no without disturbing the humans.

Troubled by the sick plants and the stress from the rain, Pyrrhus paced. He centered his roaming around the human-inhabited areas. Even when he went out of the confines of his boundary, it was not as disconcerting when he stayed around humans and their structures. The branches of his redbud remained, even if the flowers would not bloom.

Some of the humans had thick clothing with them and talked about glaciers. Pyrrhus looked to the mountains. There were spots where the ice and snow stayed forever. He could not understand why anyone would want to go there intentionally. It was cold!

The humans left in one of their growling cars. Pyrrhus raised his hackles at it. The noisy things always stank. He normally stayed away from the large area of concrete where the cars slept, but he felt something lost among them.

As he searched around the stinking rubber wheels, Pyrrhus wondered if objects could be transformed the same way he had. Even if they could, he preferred to try and save them first. It was what he did with animals and he had yet to transform any.

Something bright red caught Pyrrhus' attention. Getting closer, he realized it was a mitten, beside an empty spot where a car had slept. Pyrrhus nudged the mitten with a paw. The mitten just lay on the ground. The car was gone, along with its humans. The poor mitten had been left behind, alone without its partner.

Pyrrhus picked up the mitten and rested it on his back. There was a still discontent in the air. Pyrrhus thought of the pottery shards and trotted off in the direction of the shed.

The shed was waiting for him, safe and dry as he had left it. Pyrrhus placed the mitten on top of the leaf pile. It felt right.

Pyrrhus curled up on the leaf pile, resting his chin on the mitten. This place was for him and him alone, with no concerns over accommodating the humans or organizing plants. He could fill it with precious things and softness. He found a home within his boundary and he felt more at ease than he possibly ever had before.


	9. Shaping Their Environment




	10. First Time Outside Their Boundary

The feeling of fading persisted as Pyrrhus lingered at the northern end of his path.

He had begun prodding at the edges the past week. There seemed to be some unmarked line that separated his path from everything else. The lake made up his southern border. The western and eastern were blurry lines around the forest. This northern one felt even more gradual, connecting with the concrete that lead up to a distant building.

Pyrrhus placed a tentative paw on the concrete. He could feel, even if he could not see, his flowers closing into buds. Another paw and the flowers were gone. Pyrrhus was as solid as he could make himself and did not sink, or fade away, even as he could feel a strange tug in his chest that told him to turn back.

Stubbornly, Pyrrhus walked fully onto the concrete. He remained solid and his crest of redbud branches remained in place.

X had never really explained much to Pyrrhus, other than a general description of the nature of esks as spirits. All X had wanted, it seemed, was to make a gardener for the path then depart. Pyrrhus was still unsure about his feelings toward them. One interpretation was that it let Pyrrhus figure things out at his own pace.

Pyrrhus focused on the positive and walked down the concrete path.

There were more people on the concrete path than he was used to seeing. Pyrrhus wove between them, half making a game of it. Humans were strangely unobservant. Pyrrhus could not hide his presence from animals, cats in particular took notice of him. But humans simply didn't, other than the occasional observant hatchling who would babble about a "green doggy." The hatchlings were swiftly dismissed by their parents as having overactive imaginations.

The concrete path led to wide steps, also made of concrete. Pyrrhus sat to the side and watched. The humans appeared to like concrete. He didn't know what was wrong with dirt or stone or wood. Those were all perfectly fine things to walk on. Concrete was normally quite rough. Pyrrhus preferred his gravel. 

The humans always had brightly colored covers over their feet. Shoes. They were called shoes. The shoes must make the concrete more comfortable.

Pyrrhus headed over to the steps, continuing his game of weaving between the humans. He leapt up onto a metal bannister. Tiptoeing across the bar, he made it to the top of the steps.

The large building was ahead of him. It had become a familiar sight in the distance, and it was interesting to finally see it up close. The doors were left wide open, with small groups of humans coming and going from the large building. Pyrhhus walked toward the steps unnoticed by the crowd.

Pyrrhus walked up the steps and through the doors. The floor was made up of a strange blue thing, like grass but made from hair. Pyrrhus pawed at it. He was frustrated by his strange mix of knowing and not knowing things. He had yet to figure out what coffee was, yet he did know of concrete and gardens and fences.

Turning his attention away from the ground, Pyrrhus looked around him. There were pillars made of stone, as thick as tree trunks, that held up the ceiling. The pillars had carvings of curling, leaf covered vines and birds in flight on them, which Pyrrhus thought were rather silly, because the humans could go just outside to see nicer looking real vines and birds.

A flash of rainbow light caught Pyrrhus' attention. A shimmering mass of crystals was suspended in the air by several metal chains. Pyrrhus became transfixed by the crystals. They winked in rainbow hues. In three great bounds, Pyrrhus made it to a nearby beam where he could study the crystals more closely.

Each one was a clear piece of glass in the shape of a teardrop, but with little flat sides. The flat sides were what caught the light and made the rainbows. Pyrrhus looked down at the humans. None seemed to notice the crystals. Humans rarely looked up, after all.

Pyrrhus pawed at the nearest crystal, sending it spinning. The lights danced. Pyrrhus leapt to a better vantage point and pawed at one of the big chains. That sent a whole group of the crystals moving. Pyrrhus alternated between leaping and floating between the crystals. The rainbows danced across his fur.

Humans were incredibly strange creatures. Unobservant yet creative and inventive. Pyrrhus doubted he would ever truly understand them.

However, he could appreciate their arts. Thoroughly amused by the spinning crystals, Pyrrhus leapt down onto a bannister that overlooked the lower level. The rainbows painted the room. Out of the corner of his eye, something else shiny glinted down a hallway. Pyrrhus trotted off in pursuit of further entertainment.


End file.
